Fantastic Negrito

Son of a Somali-Caribbean immigrant who played African music, Xavier Dphrepaulezz aka Fantastic Negrito was born on January 20, 1968 in Great Barrington and grew up in Massachusetts, but moved to California when he was just 12. It was culture shock: in the space of a day, he went from Arabian songs to Funkadelic, perfecting his musical education in one of the country's most influential black communities. By the age of 20, he had taught himself to play most instruments, but his ascent was halted by a close encounter with armed men. Armed with a model, he decides to leave for Los Angeles, where he hopes fame awaits him. In the midst of Hollywood life, he signed with a manager and landed a contract with Interscope, which unfortunately curbed his creativity. An album, X-Factor, was released under the name Xavier, but failed to meet with the expected response. In 2000, he survived a terrible car accident that had left him in a coma for four weeks, and had to undergo a long rehabilitation phase. In 2008, he returned to Oakland and began to envisage a life without music. But the birth of his son gave him a new artistic lease of life. In 2016, he recorded The Last Days of Oakland, the first in a series of blues, rock and soul albums on which he expresses his creativity. Winner of a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album, he goes on to win two more for Please Don't Be Dead, released in 2019, and Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? released in 2020. In 2022, he continued under another independent label, Storefront Records, for the album White Jesus Black Problems, followed by the acoustic Grandfather Courage in 2023 and the electric Son of a Broken Man (2024), which reached No. 10 in the blues charts.